Tag: 09.05

Why Are America’s Schools Segregated?

“One of the most disheartening experiences for those who grew up in the years when Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall were alive is to visit public schools today that bear their names, or names of other honored leaders of the integration struggles that produced the temporary progress that took place in the three decades after Brown v. Board of Education, and to find out how many of these schools are bastions of contemporary segregation. It is even more disheartening when schools like these are not in deeply segregated inner-city neighborhoods but in racially mixed areas where the integration of a public school would seem to be most natural, and where, indeed, it takes a conscious effort on the part of parents or school officials in these districts to avoid the integration option that is often right at their front door.”

Do We Want “Appropriate” Art For WTC Projects?

Cultural buildings at the site of the World Trade Center are mired in debates about what is “appropriate.” ” ‘The challenge for the curators is going to be: given the context of where these cultural institutions are, what’s appropriate here?’ Whatever else this particular controversy has illustrated, it is just the latest trouble to visit the four cultural structures of the new World Trade Center site. One way or another, the future of all four of them — the memorial, the memorial museum, the performing arts center, and the cultural building — is unclear.

Archiving American Theatre (Even The Non-New York Kind)

“The purpose of The Best Plays Theater Yearbook series, founded by Burns Mantle, has been to create an ‘armchair view’ of the theatrical season. The challenge of the series has been to capture that ephemeral, elusive moment of connection between playwright, design team, actors and audience. The series now numbers some eighty-five volumes, having captured almost a century in American Theatre and in so doing, provided an encapsulated view of eighty-five years of American History through the eyes of its dramatists… The series has also expanded its reach to cover not only the theatrical world of New York, but around the entire country.”

Competing For Art

Major auction houses compete hard for the collections they sell. “To win a coveted collection, Sotheby’s and Christie’s will offer everything from elaborate dinner parties and Champagne and caviar served in the skyboxes to single-owner catalogues and all-expense-paid trips around the world. But what matters most right now is the money that the firms are guaranteeing and advancing to consignors, more so than the track record of the auction house or the personal relationships that have been created. In the majority of cases, when push comes to shove, the money will win.”